Fractional Finance Director | Process Automation Evangelist | Transforming the Finance Function
Companies spend way too much money💸on outside consultants👨💼👩💼. This may seem counterintuitive coming from me as I have spent a significant portion of my career as an external consultant - initially with a boutique consulting firm and later running my own advisory services firm🙂. Why does this happen so frequently? Lack of effective knowledge transition. Clients become overly reliant on the ability of the consultant to deliver project-specific work products and artifacts that take hundreds of hours to complete😩. This situation happens because existing permanent staff don’t have the bandwidth to spend time working on special projects. The client overcommits on budget and little or no knowledge gets passed on to the existing staff. The consultant exits the project and the client feels abandoned at the end of the day. Is there a solution to this “brain 🧠 drain”? Yes there is – we are called fractional executives. Fractional executives provide the same level of delivery while building a target operating model ensuring permanent resources have the skills, knowledge, and capacity to absorb the work after the consultant has exited. It’s like an insurance plan with a higher premium up front, but significant payout toward the end of its’ term. This is why I’ve committed my career to becoming a fractional finance director. I’ve gotten tired of seeing this situation repeat itself when the client could have received at least the same value or more and had the internal knowledge transition to sustain future operations at a fraction of the cost compared to an external consultant. It’s intentional that these temporary executive staffing solutions are called “fractional”. Want to learn more about fractional executive services? Ring the bell 🔔 and follow my posts to get the latest on this innovative service offering. P.S. ChatGPT did not write this prompt for me😉. #fractionalexecutives #budgets #servicedelivery
This is such a great business idea Anthony Perrozzi. I work as a trainer on ERP projects, and I have long thought that where companies and execs really need good advice/guidance/help is when they are negotiating with prospective implementation partners. So many companies sign up for way more services than they need, and then they don’t organize it correctly to build internal skill. Sounds like your fractional execs could make a dent in this problem.
Love this take, Anthony! 🚀 Fractional execs sound like the secret sauce companies need but often overlook. It's all about building that internal muscle rather than relying on a temporary fix. Plus, who doesn't like saving money while boosting skills? Let's chat more about how businesses can make this shift. Coffee sometime?
Six Sigma Black Belt, MBA, Engineering
7moTotally agree. I think what companies miss is the learning opportunity to work on the transformation projects for the permanent staff. The expectation is that staff will pick up and operate the processes after consultants leave. Unfortunately, staff do not have the benefit of seeing the end to end being developed. Businesses should focus on how to set their future uoperations up for success. Limit consultants on the development and empower employees to share ideas on how to make things better along with strategic consultants. Other consultants should be brought in to back fill the day to day tasks so permanent staff can actively participate in the transformation. Once all consultants roll off, permanent staff is ready to own the solution and continuously improve.